Jenny Jones takes "a different approach" to road tax debate

Congestion, pollution, other people’s ill-health, damage to roads and waiting lists at hospitals or queues at doctor’s surgeries – just some of the areas that cyclists don’t contribute to, says Green Party politician Jenny Jones in a blog post for road.cc.

The London Assembly member, who also sits in the House of Lords after being created a life peer in 2013, was writing in reaction to the storm on Twitter created by Transport for London board member Brian Cooke due to his comments about cyclists and “road tax” – something abolished in the 1930s, as Jones points out.

Her blog post seeks to take “a different approach” to the issue rather than setting out what she describes as “the well-worn rebuttals about how much general taxation pays for roads, how many cyclists are also drivers and how many drivers are exempt from what the motorheads mistakenly still call ‘road tax’.”

In it, she looks at how cyclists benefit society through not contributing to those issues outlines at the start of this article, or at least contribute less than the average person would, how they cities nicer places to live, and how improvements they fight for make roads safer for pedestrians too.

You can read her post here.